Yuri Gagarin is a monument to Soviet space conquest. Sixty years ago, he became the first man in the world to be sent into space.
60 years ago, on April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to leave space. When the Russian cosmonaut first entered the Vostok rocket, his pulse ranged abnormally from 64 to 157 beats per minute. He knows he has only one chance of survival.
The rocket took off at 09:07 p.m. In 11 minutes, the ship reaches orbit. At an altitude of 250 kilometers above the Earth, Gagarin sends his first message: " I observe the Earth. I can distinguish the relief, the forests, the clouds".
This first 89-minute tour of the Earth, experienced by humans, is one of the greatest landmarks in history. Just two days after landing, this success has made the rounds of the world. Yuri Gagarin received honors from then-Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. The hero died 7 years later, at the age of 34, during a test flight aboard a fighter jet.
This national hero is still celebrated in Russia and globally. The Vostok capsule, in which the astronaut made his first flight into space, can be seen in a museum in Moscow.
At present, man has made great strides in the discovery of outer space. On April 9, 2021, a Soyuz rocket flew to the International Space Station. It took off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, with two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut on board.